Considering Constitutional Change: Survey Evidence on Public Attitudes Toward Term Limits for Federal Judges

Abstract

This article analyzes public attitudes toward replacing lifetime tenure with term limits for federal judges, including U.S. Supreme Court justices. We employ novel data that we collected from a nationwide survey experiment. We find that although partisans are less supportive of proposals from their opponents, the magnitude of this effect is much smaller than one might expect in today’s polarized environment. We also find that a respondent’s support for term limits is a function of his or her subjective ideological agreement with the Supreme Court. Finally, we demonstrate that although support for term limits is generally high, only a modest subset of reform supporters believe that term limits should be a top political priority. These supporters also tend to exhibit weaker levels of support for the rule of law more generally. Taken together, the results contribute to our understanding of an issue of significant importance.